Falling from the sky.

Okay-- so I've got a SuperBat bug up my keister. Heh heh heh...

So anyway... enjoy.

* * *

Diabolical.

The plan was diabolical--and simple.

The helicopter S.O.S.ed over Metropolis, and continued toward Gotham.

"Got this one," Superman said, and Bruce had a vision of him changing in a bathroom stall or a broom closet or something and then zooming out a window. One of the best things of working at night when everyone assumed you were getting drunk and getting laid was that you didn't have to do the costume switch thing.   You just had to not get drunk and not get laid.

Or not get drunk and be all but married to a guy who barely needed to sleep and who would bend over for you on a dime.

God, Bruce Wayne loved Clark Kent in a "I"m so stupid for you" kind of way.

So Bruce had to give his guy props for pulling off the double life on a moment by moment basis--Bruce had enough time being Bruce Wayne in the day and Batman at night.  But having Superman to come home to? That was something special right there. That was almost enough to make him feel human.

"Oh no!" Clark's choirboy voice over the intercom cracked and Bruce tried not to smile. Then Clark said "There's a child, falling from the helicopter--he doesn't appear to be moving!"

"Superman, that's negative on approaching."  Bruce's stomach was suddenly in a roil. "Diana, can you get closer? Can you see what's falling? Somebody get a six on this!"

"It's a child!" Clark insisted. "I'm going in!"

"I do not like this!" Bruce hissed over the intercom. He worked the satellite feed as quickly as he could from his console at work. "Barry! Hal! Somebody besides Clark! That thing looks green!"

"It's a child!" Diana confirmed, but her voice was cracking too. "And I won't get there in time. But he's got something around his neck, like a collar, and it's--Clark! Negative! Give someone else--"

"Kryptonite."

One word, but Clark's voice, strained and fading, was enough to make Bruce want to throw up. He had the visual, close up now. The child--a little boy, was limp and breathing--probably drugged. Around his neck was a bright glowing green kryptonite collar, and Superman was clutching the child and falling sluggishly from the sky.

Slow--it was a slow fall--almost a land.

Almost.

"Goddammit somebody get there and catch that kid before he stops breathing!"

Because Superman was sickly green, bleeding from the nose, mouth, and ears, skin cracking, like any human would be in the presence of plutonium.

"Got him! Clark, let go! Let me take the kid, you land!"

"Kid..."  Constrained by pain, Clark's normally fine mind was wandering.  "Gotta--"

"I've got him!" Hal snarled. "Let go or we'll all go down!"

Twenty years of being a masked vigilante. He'd gone through four Robins--one of them had been killed in action. And he'd gone to face the damage, doctor the hurts, deal with the fallout with eyes wide open, even when what he saw ripped out his soul.

But he almost couldn't watch his monitors.

Almost.

"Let go," he whispered. "Come on Clark. Let Hal... let Hal take him. Land yourself. Let go..."

Superman dropped suddenly, as though passing out, and Hal took the advantage, tugging the baby away from him and encasing them both in a bubble shield before taking the kid up to the Eye in the Sky.

And still, Superman fell, slowly, struggling, from the sky.

"Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up WHY ISN'T ANYBODY GETTING HIM!"

The whole operation had taken maybe ten seconds, and was over two-hundred miles away. Bruce's only option was to stare as Superman's limp form fell...fell...fell... wait, did he just move?

Hit.

The concrete shattered under his weight.

Bruce watched that still form on the ground while his breath stopped and his heart stopped and everything in his life stopped and breathe move get up breathe move get up breathe move get up...

"MOVE MOTHERFUCKER, MOVE!"

To onlookers, it was like he'd been jerked up into the air by strings.

Bruce scrubbed his hands across his face and discovered it was wet, and he could no longer stare at the monitor.

"Bruce, he appears to be fine."  Diana's voice was a little trembly. "Clark? Clark? Can you say something to us so we know your brains didn't run out your ears?"

"Barry?" Clark said creaky. "You out there?"

"Barry?" Bruce asked, stricken to the core.

"Yes boss--what do you need from me?"

"Could you go stop Bruce from running?"

"I beg your pardon?" Bruce asked, when he could catch his breath again. To his shame, his voice came out croaky and broken.

"Shouldn't we maybe take down the helicopter, boss?"

"I'll get the helicopter," Diana said grimly. "Hal's got the kid. Barry, do what he says--if Bruce isn't halfway to the BatCave by now in an effort to find something that will get him off planet, I haven't worked with the guy for ten years."

"Fuck you all," Bruce snarled--from the elevator, actually, because he didn't have his suit with him, he was at Wayne Industries for sweet fuck's sake!

"Ten-four," Barry said, like he got it now. "What would you like me to do?"

"Just keep track of him until I get there," Clark said grimly.  "Diana, you sure you got--"

"Kryptonite, Clark. It was obviously aimed at you. Let Hal and I handle this one, and you know. Calm him the hell down."

"I am very calm," Bruce told them.  His brain burned hot and bright, a red ball of fear and pain.

"Uh, yeah." Barry didn't sound convinced. "I'll be there before you can leave Wayne Industries."

Not possible. Mostly because Bruce had a back way. He pulled out his intercom and stepped on it, then pushed the three button sequence that would send the elevator plunging down to subterranean levels and rocket it toward  the outskirts of Gotham.

The trip took about half an hour.

By the time the car shuddered to a halt in the outer circle of the cave, Bruce was still curled up in a corner, shuddering, trying not to lose his shit.  Oh God. Oh hell. He'd thought it was okay, he really had. But Clark had kept falling, and falling, and falling and... Bruce had watched him on the monitor helpless, and he had...

A pounding at the door got his attention.

He hit the manual intercom from the inside of the car. "Alfred, I just haven't opened the doors yet, okay?"

"Obviously, sir. I'm not the one banging on them."

"Well tell whoever it is to stop, I'm in the middle of--"

He did not expect the elevator to crack in half like a walnut, leaving him, huddled in the corner of the car, exposed.

"Falling apart," Clark Kent said, voice rough. "You're in the middle of falling apart."

Bruce blinked at him, balefully. "Wash your face," he demanded roughly. God, he was bloody. Ears, eyes, mouth--every orifice. He was pretty sure if Clark turned around his pants would be soaked in gore too.

Bloody.

The man of steel who never bled was bleeding all over Bruce's BatCave. He clutched his hand to his chest to make it easier to breathe.

"I'm fine now," Clark told him evenly. "You on the other hand--"

"I've got somewhere to go," Bruce said, like it was obvious. The voice of reason--that was Bruce Wayne. "I have an appointment in Bavaria--I need the BatWing, that's all."

"Bruce," Clark said, voice all gentleness.  He hunkered down like Bruce was a child. "I've seen your blood before, remember?"

"I'm... I have to go. Chechnya. There's something... there's something urgent there. I've got to--"

"Look at me."

Bruce shook his head, wrapping his arms around his knees, resting his forehead on them too. "No," he begged. "No. You're invincible. I'll die first. Those are the rules. That's... that's the rule. I die first. You know it's coming. I'm... I'm expendable. There's a pool at the Gotham police station--everyone's got money on next year."

"I'm not taking any of that action," Clark said grimly. "Now look at me, Bruce. You need to see I'm mortal sometimes. And you need to see I'm okay."

"YOu're okay," Bruce whispered. "You're okay. You're okay you're okay you're okay--"

He felt the long fingers on his chin, gentle but insistent. He raised his eyes and looked.

His face under the blood was no longer green--that was important.

But the blood again.

But Clark's eyes, piercing blue, those were open and boring into Bruce's soul.

"You'd better last longer than next year," Clark told him, scowling. "Now come on. We're going to the infirmary."

"You said you were okay," Bruce snarled, jerking away.

"But you're not."  Clark let out a sigh and seemed to give up. He paused right there and wrapped his arms around Bruce's shoulders. "You're not."

"I'm never okay," Bruce told him truthfully before he broke again. "I'm functional. You make me functional. But oh my God, I'll never be okay again--"

He began to lose it, completely, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Clark stayed there, as bloodied and worn as Batman most days, and held him.

Being mortal sucked on the best of days, but Batman would never--ever--recover from seeing Clark Kent falling from the sky.

"What are you doing?" he demanded when he could breathe again. "Why are you--" He scowled. "Please tell me you're not miked."

"Took the com out when I made Barry leave the BatCave," Clark told him as he slid off his rumpled suit coat. "Just you and me here."  He looked over Bruce's shoulder. "Please tell me there aren't people falling down the giant gaping hole where your elevator used to be?"

Bruce didn't even look at the wreckage. "It was a private car," he growled. "Why are you undressing me?"

"Because we're getting in the shower."

"I'm not the one who needs a shower!" Blood! Oh God!

"So you can see it wash off, Bruce. You can see I'm okay."

Bruce just shook his head--but for once he let himself be led from the cave to the infirmary, to the giant white tiled shower.  He'd been in here a lot--and sometimes, it looked like a butcher's block when he was done. He remembered cleaning off Jason Todd's body, the late adolescent fragility destroying his heart to powder as he prepared his ward, his protege... his son, for burial.

He watched numbly as Clark turned on the water and then ripped off his suit.  The threads of the specially designed elastic cotton split and turned to powder as it fell.  Kryptonite--so deadly to Superman that the clothing on his body was destroyed.

It wasn't until Clark reached for him, backed into a corner and rubbing his hand across his mouth that he realized he was chanting, "No. No no no. No..."

He took a deep breath and tried to see what was real.

Clark Kent, farm boy, altruistic alien, Superman, was standing naked in the shower, inviting Bruce to check out his body with trembling fingers to make sure he was okay.

Bruce took the few steps toward the shower head, wrapped his arms around Clark's waist and squeezed.

No ribs broke, no breath stopped. Clark palmed the back of his head and forced his face into the hollow of his shoulder and neck, and Bruce stayed there, letting the hot water pounding them both, breathing hard until the water ran clear beneath their feet.

"What's it going to take?" Clark asked softly.  "How do we get you back from this?"

"Take me," Bruce whispered.

"What?"

"TAKE ME!" He shouted, face still muffled in Clark's shoulder. Clark picked him up and flew them, without ceremony or pause, into the bedroom.  Bruce tried to do it on his hands and knees, body pulled into the fetal position while Clark pounding inside him reminded him that they were both alive.  But Clark wrestled him to his back and shoved lube roughly up his ass before he could even relax enough to take it well.

"You want this?" Clark asked, voice cracking. "Cause I want to know I'm alive too. Try to run out on me? You know what I was thinking, the whole time I was falling?"

"What?" Bruce growled, arching up, trying to thrust against his cock, trying to take it all the way inside. "What were you thinking as you fell from the fucking sky?"

"I was thinking," Clark breathed, carefully thrusting into Bruce's vulnerable human body, "that I didn't want to," slide, slide, slide, "leave you!" Bottom!

Bruce gasped, unaccustomed to bottoming, but needing that feeling, his lover inside him, so much he'd endure any pain to have it.

He wasn't expecting the pleasure.

Wasn't expecting Clark, exquisitely gentle Clark, thrusting inside him, rocking harder and harder, until Bruce felt the man-of-steel's thighs smacking up against the bones in his ass, leaving bruises, but taking hm, dominating him, filling him completely, until there was no room for fear or doubt, no room for pain, no room even for that awful image, Superman bloody and senseless, falling from the sky.

Bruce cried out too soon, it felt like, far too soon. He needed Clark inside him for longer, for more, forever.

But Bruce's orgasm triggered Clark's, and soon he was spasming, coming--not, like the lore suggested, shooting holes through Batman's ass--but coming hard, like a human man inside his lover. Bruce climaxed again, almost willfully, in an effort to keep Clark inside as long as possible.

"Don't leave me," he whispered against his will, forgetting conveniently that he was the one who'd been leaving in his secret escape hatch.

"Not if I can help it."  Clark shuddered one more time and collapsed on top of him. "But you need to stay too. As long as possible. Please, Bruce. Please. Don't try to leave again."

This time the tears were cleansing, not devastating. And when they were shed, the two of them stayed in bed, drying under the fan and touching each other, just touching.

Pretending that forever was a thing, and that never again might either one of them spend a day falling from the sky.